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Lianise
Former Mayor of Penrith , and member of the Winslow Family . Current Positions: *Mines Superintendent for Westmorland Lianise is 5’3”, with black hair, bright blue eyes, an oval face with strong jaw and squarish chin, and freckles across her nose. She is petite and slight. She is adventurous, helpful, sensitive, restless, and kind. Her mother is a seamstress, who makes fancy tapestries for the local abbey and nearby nobility. She taught Lia how to sew very well, including fancy work. Lia also has a beautiful singing voice, and loves to sing. She's also a good hand at throwing daggers, and has quite nice calligraphy writing. The town carpenter taught her some carpentry, including how to whittle little figurines, so Lia still likes to do that in her spare time. Lianise was raised by a woman she thought was her mother, a good, kind woman who had always done right by her. But on her 18th birthday, her mother sat her down and told her the truth – she was not her real child. And she had no idea whose child she was. In fact, the woman had found her as a toddler, wandering the streets of Egremont. She took her in hand, thinking to help the child find her parents, but after searching and asking around all day she had no luck. She stayed in Egremont with the child for a week trying to find her parents, but no one had seen her before or knew where she came from. At last, with no other options, she decided to take the child to the local church. They would take in orphans and keep them alive, however rough a life it may be. But when the time came to hand the child over to the priest, the woman looked into the girl’s big blue eyes and could not do it. She was so soft and innocent, she did not deserve a life toiling the mines, likely to die as a teen from mine dust in her lungs. So the woman took Lianise home with her, to a little village on the border of England and Scotland, and raised her as her own. But now Lianise was a woman grown, and her mother decided she needed to know the truth. Lianise sat quietly listening, absorbing it all without saying a word. Then, at last, she hugged her mother, and told her she would always be her mama, but that she needed to find her real family. At least to know who they were and why they had abandoned her as a child. Her mother understood, but watched her go with tears in her eyes. Lianise promised she would be back as soon as she figured out her past, and made her way to the scene of the crime – Egremont. She stayed in Egremont for a time, searching for clues and trying to find her way in the world on her own for the first time. Eventually she learned from the bartender that there had been a couple, years ago, who lost a child, and that they had come from Penrith. Once she had enough savings, Lianise took to the road again and made her way to Penrith. There she met many warm, welcoming friends, and stayed very happily for a while, despite not finding any more clues to her past. She began to lose hope of finding her family, but as she grew closer to her new friends she was able to push that to the back of her mind. Lianise had also grown closer to another - Algernon. In what seemed like a whirlwind romance, they went from strangers to married in the space of a couple short months. Some might say it was love at first sight; to Lianise it felt like she had found her other half at last. Now, with her family discovered and a new home and family created, she finally felt complete. Almost as quickly as the romance began, it ended in a crash - Algernon's tragic death, barely a few week's after the couple's marriage, sent Lianise's world toppling down. With no desire to continue wallowing in sad memories, she sold their house, and moved out on her own once more, trying to figure out how to live as a very young widow. She moved out of the house they had shared and found a cottage of her own, and soon distracted herself by taking on a number of new responsibilities, including joining the County Council and running for Mayor. Amidst her new duties she had little time to repine her lot in life. Such heartaches as may have assailed her when alone at night had little time to intrude on her thoughts during the day. Her diligence in throwing herself into her work was not wasted, however - she was soon rewarded for all her efforts by the King himself, who bestowed on her the title and lands of the Barony of Brancepeth. Then, in a dramatic turn of events that is yet to be developed, Lianise finally found out who her real family was - and to her joy she discovered that her good friend Julianna was in fact her cousin. Her parents, Helen Winslow and Lester Esterby, had lost track of her in the Egremont marketplace when she was a toddler. They searched for her for years, believing (mistakenly) that she had been kidnapped by slave-takers. Hopeless and alone in a foreign land, they both succumbed to a strange disease and died without word ever reaching the rest of their family. * Baroness of Brancepeth *Constable of Westmorland 1464 *Mayor of Penrith 1464-1465 *Sheriff of Westmorland 1464 *Mines Superintendent of Westmorland 1465 *Viscountess of Aukland